PCI Express is one of the well-known standards for high-speed serial interfaces. PCI Express has a high data transfer speed and flexibility that is widely utilized in extension boards such as graphics cards and so forth. In recent years, a communication protocol that is based on PCI Express has been employed in communications between various types of equipment and a cable adapter based on PCI Express. For example, the PCI Express-based communication protocol is also used in extension boards in various kinds of portable information equipment such as tablet-type personal computers, smartphones, etc.
Incidentally, a thin profile is strongly preferred in portable information equipment such as those described above. However, it would be difficult for a portable information equipment to have a thin profile if the portable information equipment is allowed interface cards based on PCI Express M.2 having connectors with a two-stage configuration (i.e., an tipper-stage side connector terminal group and a lower-stage-side connector terminal group) to be directly connected to a motherboard of the portable information equipment.
Consequently, it would be preferable to provide an improved method for connecting an interface card having connectors with a two-stage configuration to a thin-profile portable information equipment.